Comus is the Greek god of revelry, merrymaking and festivity. He was the son and cup-bearer of the god Dionysus.

Krew is an organisation that puts on a parade or ball for the Carnival season (New Orleans Mardi Gras and some other carnival sites in the US).

Mistick Krewe of Comus is a New Orleans Carnival krewe founded in 1856 - prior to this, Carnival celebrations in New Orleans were mostly confined to the Roman Catholic Creole community, and parades were organised informally.

Tulane University Libraries has (so far) contributed two digital collections from their Carnival research works to the Louisiana Digital Library. [via]

"This collection is the complete set of costume design drawings for the 1873 Mystick Krewe of Comus "Missing Links" parade. It was an important event in New Orleans' Mardi Gras history, becoming one of the first major parades to use satire and political commentary.

That year, there were no floats, but the members paraded in costumes made of papier-mache, based on the drawings in this collection. A Swedish lithographer, Charles Briton, made the designs. [..] The official name of the parade was "The Missing Links to Darwin's Origin of Species". [..]

Many of the images depict figures related to the Civil War and Reconstruction, such as Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Butler, and Louisiana Governor Henry Warmoth. Also depicted are notable figures such as Charles Darwin, and Algernon Badger (head of the Metropolitan Police)."

"This collection is the complete set of float design drawings by Jennie Wilde for the 1910 Comus Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, Louisiana. [..]

Jennie Wilde (1865-1913) was an artist who designed floats for many New Orleans Mardi Gras parades, including the Mistick Krewe of Comus and the Knights of Momus. The theme of the 1910 Comus parade was the Prophet Mahomet (Muhummad) and related subjects."

Find the book "Mardi Gras New Orleans" by Henri Schindler ( published by Flammarion ) It is replete with images as beautiful as these and accompanied by first rate scholarship on the history of Carnival in New Orleans written in a beautifully effervescent style.

The artist of the float design is Jennie Wilde, "High Priestess of Art Nouveau".......... a goddess herself.

You realise that the American dimension to the tradition of celebration and carnival prior to the fasting of Lent is but a small blip on a very long timeline right? And that such tradition stretches back to ancient Rome, and the present form/style of Mardi Gras celebration began in the Middle Ages after the Reformation right? Right!?? Just sayin'..